KitchenKnifeForums: A Boulevard of Broken BST

[esoo]

I'll try to limit participation in this thread since (1) I'm not really a established member of this community and (2) those who have skin in the game should get their voice heard here. But to provide clarification to this question, I've purchased around a half-dozen times through KKF. My experiences were generally "fine" with two minor disappointments. At the time, I didn't say anything because I assumed it was my fault for not knowing better.

As others have suggested, yes, this article is deliberately highlighting some of the worst behaviors in order to push for change. That bad behavior is not limited to KKF; it also existed on reddit's r/chefknifeswap forum and elsewhere. But given that KKF is the only remaining major player in the second-hand market, it wound up being the label used to express a wider frustration.

Maybe taking time to research why the rules are the way they are before you write a treaty on them would be place to start. Many of the rules exist as they do because of past behaviours. Not trying to say that they are the best rules, but they are rules for here.

And maybe a note you can adjust this:

• The situation has gotten so bad that it’s developed a shorthand in BST: GLWS, or “good luck with sale”. This is coded sarcasm for a knife that should never reasonably sell given the assumed condition/price.

Yes - that does exist for knives that are over priced. But GLWS is also used quite genuinely for knives that are well priced and you wish the seller good luck.

 

[Gshep91]

You certainly can.

This article didn’t do that though. It lists the problems. I find the problems interesting to discuss since they can create bad experiences for both new and old enthusiasts and most of us have a common interest to take care of the community.

At the end of the day, if the author wanted a genuine discussion about the problems, he would have written it differently. This is inflammatory and doesn’t encourage anyone to take him seriously.

 

[DrEriksson]

Correct. The rationale behind that statement though are the bullet point conclusions that say essentially, these problems exist as a result of premium memberships providing funding for the site. I think we've seen more instances than not of "supporting members" getting banned for this type of behavior rather than protected due to the revenue they generate.

Fair enough. I didn’t interpret it that way, but it might just be that we come to this text from different perspectives. Or that I have a bias in this making me interpret it favorably for Marine.

I can add that the comments raised are similar to comments we struggled with when modding r/chefknifeswap. We did enforce DM deals where seller didn’t accept G&S/invoice, as we didn’t want to platform that behavior. We also changed requirements for pictures after the Tansu saga. So we had similar issues, and for some of them I think we were better. (Not claiming we were better overall.) Marine was not part of this mod team.

 

[OkayMode]

 

[IronBalloon]

Agree with it, disagree with it.

It’s been very effective thus far at generating discussion on the topic.

I don’t believe Mariner is trying to say that every sale is a bad sale. They have highlighted some dramatic examples to show us what can go wrong.

Are these the minority? I should hope so.

But just because it doesn’t happen often doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk about it.

I used to mod r/chefknifeswap and we were often in discussion on how we can try increase the transparency of sales so as to reduce the risk to all parties. It’s tough. It’s worth talking about. It’s easy to abuse systems if you’re of a mind to. Ignoring that just because it’s never happened to you or only happens occasionally is being a part of the problem and not the solution.

 

[user 16756]

Correct(ish) observation, bad motivation.

At the end of the day BST here is old school for better and for worse and it aint changing until the people here want it to change. And it seems to me like no one here wants things to change.

 

[Gshep91]

Agree with it, disagree with it.

It’s been very effective thus far at generating discussion on the topic.

I don’t believe Mariner is trying to say that every sale is a bad sale. They have highlighted some dramatic examples to show us what can go wrong.

Are these the minority? I should hope so.

But just because it doesn’t happen often doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk about it.

I used to mod r/chefknifeswap and we were often in discussion on how we can try increase the transparency of sales so as to reduce the risk to all parties. It’s tough. It’s worth talking about. It’s easy to abuse systems if you’re of a mind to. Ignoring that just because it’s never happened to you or only happens occasionally is being a part of the problem and not the solution.

The discussion has been more about the article itself rather than the changes he calls for.

I think many of us would have respected the discussion if this article wasn’t so blatantly one sided and, frankly, insulting to the community.
You can bring up change & suggestions without creating this much angst and animosity.

Once again, it’s bad journalism and sensationalism.

 

[IronBalloon]

The discussion has been more about the article itself rather than the changes he calls for.

I think many of us would have respected the discussion if this article wasn’t so blatantly one sided and, frankly, insulting to the community.
You can bring up change & suggestions without creating this much angst and animosity.

Once again, it’s bad journalism and sensationalism.

Okay, but does bad journalism and sensationalism invalidate the idea?

Personally I don’t think so.


Would the discussion have been engaged with so passionately by so many had it not been inflammatory?

It’s like YouTube click bait titles and thumbnails.

They’re annoying as hell but the numbers don’t lie. They work.

To touch on tcmx3’s point, do we not think there’s room for improvement or are we happy with the current status quo?

Are we content that the 3 highlighted examples are acceptable margins? Or do we think we could’ve avoided them altogether and retained the elements of BST that are loved?

 

[esoo]

Okay, but does bad journalism and sensationalism invalidate the idea?

Personally I don’t think so.


Would the discussion have been engaged with so passionately by so many had it not been inflammatory?

It’s like YouTube click bait titles and thumbnails.

They’re annoying as hell but the numbers don’t lie. They work.

To touch on tcmx3’s point, do we not think there’s room for improvement or are we happy with the current status quo?

Are we content that the 3 highlighted examples are acceptable margins? Or do we think we could’ve avoided them altogether and retained the elements of BST that are loved?

There is room for improvement, but will never stop examples from happening.

And the journalism is very poor. You just have to go reading the rest of his medium to understand that.

 

[tostadas]

Okay, but does bad journalism and sensationalism invalidate the idea?

Personally I don’t think so.


Would the discussion have been engaged with so passionately by so many had it not been inflammatory?

It’s like YouTube click bait titles and thumbnails.

They’re annoying as hell but the numbers don’t lie. They work.

To touch on tcmx3’s point, do we not think there’s room for improvement or are we happy with the current status quo?

Are we content that the 3 highlighted examples are acceptable margins? Or do we think we could’ve avoided them altogether and retained the elements of BST that are loved?

The concluding ideas are nothing new. But they also don't have a whole lot to do with the first 80% of the article.

If I went over to Reddit and cherry picked 3 examples of shady sales over the past 5 years, said how deceit is rampant across Reddit, and how changing the seller payment methods would fix all of it, I'm sure I'd get laughed out of town there too.

Here's one from the machi canyon guy. He was banned quick from KKF after his lies were uncovered. But he remained on Reddit in the chefknives and swap forums. I quite enjoyed the postings FWIW.

 

[HumbleHomeCook]

Ah, reddit. I get it now.

 

[DrEriksson]

There is room for improvement, but will never stop examples from happening.

And the journalism is very poor. You just have to go reading the rest of his medium to understand that.

Is there anything specific I should look at to see examples of poor journalism? (Granted that I think the only ones who have called it journalism are in this thread. So any examples of bad texts from a fellow knife enthusiast feels more fair.)

 

[DrEriksson]

Ah, reddit. I get it now.

Ah, Reddit. Hurr durr.

 

[superworrier]

The concluding ideas are nothing new. But they also don't have a whole lot to do with the first 80% of the article.

If I went over to Reddit and cherry picked 3 examples of shady sales over the past 5 years, said how deceit is rampant across Reddit, and how changing the seller payment methods would fix all of it, I'm sure I'd get laughed out of town there too.

Here's one from the machi canyon guy. He was banned quick from KKF after his lies were uncovered. But he remained on Reddit in the chefknives and swap forums. I quite enjoyed the postings FWIW.

And from personal experience, Reddit is 10x worse when it comes to this.

 

[user 16756]

I think many of us would have respected the discussion if this article wasn’t so blatantly one sided and, frankly, insulting to the community.

man you guys crack me up some times.

 

[IronBalloon]

There is room for improvement, but will never stop examples from happening.

And the journalism is very poor. You just have to go reading the rest of his medium to understand that.

I guess I just don’t care about the quality of the journalism because I think the article is less important than the idea.

If all we want to do is sit here and bag on the author fine, but I don’t see that as being constructive.

Yes there will always be bad actors but do you not think we should be open about talking about the problem and potentially making it harder and harder for bad actors to exist in the community?

 

[jedy617]

Honestly I don't get the obsession with trying to make KKF look bad by r/chefknife mods. Is it because of the failure of the subreddit? Who is the target audience for this? Are people really reading an article about a specialized forum's B/S/T in their free time lol

 

[PappaG]

I guess I just feel lucky. I have bought and sold tons of knives without issue over the last few years. I still have a few to sell . I have embarassinlgy (and still to this day) buy knives, hold them and just sell them without using them. Its a sickness (sorry everyone - its not a healthy habit!).

The only thing I agree with is this:
"The sole allowance of positive comments on BST posts allows friend groups to hype up one another’s knives to the point of lunacy.:

We are all guilty of it, myself included. This can be just as bad as making negative comments. A newby can be led to think a certain knife is a great deal just because several member are hyping it. You (the hype person) should buy it if you think its such a great deal...

Anyway, any good deals on BST now?

 

[user 16756]

I guess I just feel lucky. I have bought and sold tons of knives without issue over the last few years. I still have a few to sell . I have embarassinlgy (and still to this day) buy knives, hold them and just sell them without using them. Its a sickness (sorry everyone - its not a healthy habit!).

The only thing I agree with is this:
"The sole allowance of positive comments on BST posts allows friend groups to hype up one another’s knives to the point of lunacy.:

We are all guilty of it, myself included. This can be just as bad as making negative comments. A newby can be led to think a certain knife is a great deal just because several member are hyping it. You (the hype person) should buy it if you think its such a great deal...

Anyway, any good deals on BST now?

what about cases when the OP violates the rules by asking for f&f directly and looks like a suspiciously good deal and a moderator posts GLWS?

(and no, I do not intend to let that one go)

 

[Barmoley]

I guess I just don’t care about the quality of the journalism because I think the article is less important than the idea.

If all we want to do is sit here and bag on the author fine, but I don’t see that as being constructive.

Yes there will always be bad actors but do you not think we should be open about talking about the problem and potentially making it harder and harder for bad actors to exist in the community?

The ideas are not new, have been discussed to death and what we have now is there for good reasons. If the author cared at all about making some sort of improvements as he claims, the least he could do is research a bit. It is funny that most of the time people who participate the least and add the least to the community seem to always complain about something and keep on asking for changes they don't understand the implications of.

 

[PappaG]

Fair enough and have no objection to that issue being addressed but I have not encountered the problem. How prevalent is the issue? is it an issue.....No idea.

 

[blokey]

I guess I just feel lucky. I have bought and sold tons of knives without issue over the last few years. I still have a few to sell . I have embarassinlgy (and still to this day) buy knives, hold them and just sell them without using them. Its a sickness (sorry everyone - its not a healthy habit!).

The only thing I agree with is this:
"The sole allowance of positive comments on BST posts allows friend groups to hype up one another’s knives to the point of lunacy.:

We are all guilty of it, myself included. This can be just as bad as making negative comments. A newby can be led to think a certain knife is a great deal just because several member are hyping it. You (the hype person) should buy it if you think its such a great deal...

Anyway, any good deals on BST now?

kirameki and Choyo 270s, delicious Sakai 270, id go for it if not for I have too many

 

[IronBalloon]

The concluding ideas are nothing new. But they also don't have a whole lot to do with the first 80% of the article.

If I went over to Reddit and cherry picked 3 examples of shady sales over the past 5 years, said how deceit is rampant across Reddit, and how changing the seller payment methods would fix all of it, I'm sure I'd get laughed out of town there too.

Here's one from the machi canyon guy. He was banned quick from KKF after his lies were uncovered. But he remained on Reddit in the chefknives and swap forums. I quite enjoyed the postings FWIW.

If you’d messaged the swap mod team we’d have talked it through.

Part of the problem we had with this kind of thing was identifying people who had explicitly broken our rules.

We did have a problem with people trying to take advantage of new comers or the less knowledgable on swap. It’s hard to catch them all and we relied heavily on “self-policing” from the community to call out flippers or people trying to make some money by excessive pricing or trying to hide bad condition etc.

It’s why we allowed negative comments in threads.

Made it easier for us to spot when users were trying to skirt rules or even just the principles we were trying to endorse.

Is saying “yeah but Reddit is worse” enough justification to not even want to discuss how things could be done better?

How would you have moderated Reddit to make it better?

Mariners article seems to, almost unfairly, focus on KKF’s BST to the exclusion of other forums, but the subreddit for BST is gone now so criticising it would be the very definition of flogging a dead horse. I don’t think they mean to imply KKF is the worst and everyone’s BST is the best. It just seems that way cause KKF is kind of the last man standing when it comes to specifically being a kitchen knife haven.

 

[Barclid]

You can’t write an article that implies an entire community is full of snakes, thieves, and liars by picking 3 outliers.
I’m done but, at the end of the day, it’s a garbage article for views. It sounds like someone is just upset that they lost their Reddit community because of lazy mods.

I'm super confused about what your view of Medium is. Do you... do you actually think Medium is a serious news/journalism site and that this post is written "for views"?

How many views do you even think this niche ****ing community garners? Do you think the authors really cares about views? In what quantifiable way will he benefit from "views"?

Do you not think it's a little more likely that he's just pointing out problematic behavior in such a way to get people talking and thinking about it? Problematic behavior exists, whether the bulk of your or other peoples' experiences are generally favorable. It's still worth calling out and people in this thread are taking things weirdly personally.

 

[user 16756]

Fair enough and have no objection to that issue being addressed but I have not encountered the problem. How prevalent is the issue? is it an issue.....No idea.

even once is too many times.

sorry that wasnt really pointed at you per se and you're not obligated to account for it.

 

[DrEriksson]

Honestly I don't get the obsession with trying to make KKF look bad by r/chefknife mods. Is it because of the failure of the subreddit? Who is the target audience for this? Are people really reading an article about a specialized forum's B/S/T in their free time lol

Why make it a Reddit vs KKF deal? You might agree or disagree with the post, but why feed fire to this “conflict”?

I think we are many who have enjoyed both Reddit and KKF. Having modded on some of the Reddit subs and now modding on Discord, I don’t see this conflict among the Reddit/Discord crowd. Different forums have different benefits and drawbacks, but it’s mainly the same (type of) people frequenting the different forums.

 

[IronBalloon]

The ideas are not new, have been discussed to death and what we have now is there for good reasons. If the author cared at all about making some sort of improvements as he claims, the least he could do is research a bit. It is funny that most of the time people who participate the least and add the least to the community seem to always complain about something and keep on asking for changes they don't understand the implications of.

Is there somewhere I can read the rationales, so I can understand?

I’m not here to defend Mariner’s article.

I’m here because I wonder if things could be better.

But if you assert that they cannot and this is the best it’ll ever be then fine. End of discussion. Ignore the article or mock the author. That won’t eliminate the reality of the risks of BST online but I guess we’re doing the best we can so what more can you ask.

 

[blokey]

I'm super confused about what your view of Medium is. Do you... do you actually think Medium is a serious news/journalism site and that this post is written "for views"?

How many views do you even think this niche ****ing community garners? Do you think the authors really cares about views? In what quantifiable way will he benefit from "views"?

Do you not think it's a little more likely that he's just pointing out problematic behavior in such a way to get people talking and thinking about it? Problematic behavior exists, whether the bulk of your or other peoples' experiences are generally favorable. It's still worth calling out and people in this thread are taking things weirdly personally.

If he want to generate discussion, it might be a better idea to post it here than out in his own blog. The language he use does not want to generate discussion as clearly seen in how this thread turned out, if you want to generate discussion heres a better example
https://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/threads/when-seller-pics-and-or-posts-arent-honest….63812/

 

[jedy617]

Because no KKF mods make blog posts about the subreddit...and it's literally a subreddit mod quoting another subreddit mod in the article

 

[Tekkz]

Fair enough and have no objection to that issue being addressed but I have not encountered the problem. How prevalent is the issue? is it an issue.....No idea.

I'm one of the examples in the article. I've purchased 5 knives from BST and sold 4. I can confidently say this happens in exactly one out of every nine transactions.